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Introduction

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The region of Latin America covers all the Americas south of the U.S. border—that is, Mexico, Central America, South America, and the West Indies—about 15 percent of the Earth. With well over half a billion people, Latin America is 50 percent more populous than Anglo America.

For three centuries Portugal and Spain controlled most of the mainland, but the various Caribbean islands changed hands often between Spain, The Netherlands, Britain, and France. In 1804 Haiti emerged from a massive slave revolt to become the first independent Latin American nation. Within two decades Mexico and most of South and Central America followed. Spain lost Puerto Rico to the United States after the Spanish-American War (1898), and it remains a U.S. dependency. Some other West Indian islands remain under foreign flags, including the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and Montserrat (United Kingdom); the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico (United States); Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, and Saba (The Netherlands); and Guadeloupe and Martinique (France).

Because of social inequality, political instability, and economic troubles, Latin America is called a developing, or Third World, region along with much of Asia, Africa, and Oceania. Latin America’s economic dependence continues despite its valuable exports of petroleum, agricultural commodities, and, in recent years, manufactured goods.

Land and Climate

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Latin America is a region of immense proportions, extending roughly 6,000 miles (9,700 kilometers) from the Rio Grande to the island called Tierra del Fuego in the south. Chile alone is more than 2,600 miles (4,200 kilometers) long. The highest peak in the Americas, Mount Aconcagua, reaches 22,834 feet (6,959 meters) in the Andes of Argentina. The region rests upon massive geologic foundations called tectonic plates: the South American, North American, Nazca, Cocos, and Caribbean plates. Their frictions and collisions shape mountains and cause earthquakes and eruptions, making western Latin America part of the Pacific’s Ring of Fire but also spreading nutrient-rich volcanic ash through the Caribbean and Central America. (See alsoplate tectonics.)

Major Physical Features

Mexico’s rocky and dry Baja California peninsula extends along its northwestern coast. The Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts dominate large sections of the northern frontier and extend into the United States. The Sonoran Desert is crossed by the Colorado River, which is mostly dried up by irrigation agriculture before it reaches Mexico. Farther east the Rio Grande (which Mexicans call the Río Bravo) is the main river of northern Mexico. The elevated and uneven Mexican Plateau, covering much of central Mexico, is flanked by mountains—on the west by the Sierra Madre Occidental and on the east by the Sierra Madre Oriental. The southern end of the plateau is called the Mesa Central, where the country’s main agricultural areas and its densest populations are found around Mexico City, Puebla, and Guadalajara. To their southeast a transverse range of volcanoes crosses the country, and beyond that the mountains converge at the narrow Isthmus of Tehuantepec.

The Gulf of Mexico coast is a hot, low-lying area known for its oil fields. The limestone and sinkhole-pocked Yucatán Peninsula between the Gulf and the Caribbean is famous for its ruined Maya cities as well as for its modern coastal resorts of Cancún and Cozumel. Heavy rains in the south feed the Lacondón forest of Chiapas and the Grijalva–Usumacinta river. The tropical highlands of Central America are not as high or rugged as the Sierra Madre ranges. There are few high mountains in the West Indies except on the larger islands of Cuba and Hispaniola. Volcanism creates fertile soils but sometimes at great cost, as is witnessed on the devastated island of Montserrat.

Among South America’s major physical regions are the Andes Mountains, the Amazon River basin, the Guiana and Brazilian Highlands, and coastal and interior lowlands. Parallel to the long western coast of the continent, the Andes Mountains form a “backbone” from which the continent extends eastward. Throughout their 5,500-mile (8,900-kilometer) length, the Andes often reach higher than 20,000 feet (6,000 meters). Their widest section, between Peru and Bolivia, is the site of the Altiplano (“high plateau”).

Fed by Andean streams, which quickly develop into major tributaries, the Amazon River and rainforest spread through northern Brazil and parts of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Paraguay. No other river compares with the outpour of the Amazon, which is equal to either four Congo Rivers or more than 10 Mississippi Rivers. Just east of the Amazon is the Tocantins–Araguaia river, and Brazil’s northern border with Venezuela and the three Guianas is the site of the Guiana Highlands and its steep-walled mesas. From one of these spills the world’s highest cataract, Angel Falls (in Venezuela). More than half of Brazil lies on a broad plateau called the Brazilian Highlands, which includes low mountain ranges such as the Serra do Mar and rivers such as the São Francisco and Paraná.

South America’s other major lowlands include the Llanos (plains) of central Venezuela and eastern Colombia. The Llanos are seasonally flooded by the mighty Orinoco River. Near the center of South America are the Gran Chaco (a dry region of Paraguay, Bolivia, and northern Argentina) and the Pantanal, one of the world’s chief wetlands (on the Brazilian border with Paraguay and Bolivia). Water spilling through Iguazú Falls (which is far larger than Niagara Falls) and the Itaipú and Yacyretá dams (Latin America’s largest hydroelectric complexes) feeds the Paraguay, Uruguay, and Paraná rivers. These then flow into the Río de la Plata, which waters the Pampas, the flat green plains of Argentina and Uruguay.

Other major features are the Patagonia region of southern Argentina, the wind-blasted southern island of Tierra del Fuego, and northern Chile’s approximately 600-mile- (1,000-kilometer-) long Atacama Desert,
one of the world’s driest places. Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo is an extensive inlet of the Caribbean Sea. Lake Titicaca, the world’s highest navigable lake for large vessels, is divided between Peru and Bolivia.

Climate

Latin America has a wide range of climates because of differences in latitude, elevation, and maritime factors (including cold and warm ocean currents and the way that water warms and cools more slowly than land). Rainy and dry seasons vary according to a shifting low-pressure belt north and south of the equator. Annual rainfall ranges from 40 to 70 inches (1,000 to 1,800 millimeters) in many places but is heavier in the rainforests. Savanna (wet and dry tropical) climates cover large areas of South America.

Although lowlands and deserts can be hot and dreary, other areas average in the 70s° F (20s° C). Higher elevations experience cooler weather and chilly nights with bright, sunny days. Vineyards thrive in the Mediterranean climate of Chile’s central valley and around Mendoza, Argentina. Parts of Chile’s Atacama Desert receive no rainfall because of global air patterns and the Pacific Ocean’s cold Peru, or Humboldt, Current—factors that also affect the Peruvian coast. Lima, for example, receives only about 1.5 inches of rainfall per year. During El Niño events torrential downpours turn vast swaths of the coastal desert to mud, and floods tear indiscriminately at roads, hillside shanties, and ancient ruins.

The West Indies, which lie below the Tropic of Cancer, typically bask in warmth.
Low-lying islands and leeward (wind-shielded) sites in the Caribbean and Central America are drier and prone to droughts, especially between December and April. Tropical storms and hurricanes move into the Caribbean each year from the Atlantic. In addition to their winds and heavy rains, hurricanes overwhelm coastlines with deadly swells called storm surges.

Plants and Animals

Latin America’s habitats range from parched deserts to rainforests. The Amazon basin has the world’s largest tropical rainforest, and its forest floor is home to lizards, ants and other insects, tapirs, small rodents, and capybaras (the world’s largest rodents). Preying upon them—and sometimes upon one another—are giant anacondas and boas, caimans, anteaters, and jaguars. Little light reaches the ground in the thickest parts of the forest where towering ceiba (kapok), ironwood, and palms form vast canopies overhead.

Although the Amazon has zones of rich, flood-deposited soils, most plant nutrients are found high above the ground amid the vines and branches, where swinging monkeys, crawling and flying insects, lizards, and birds live. Fruit- and insect-eating bats, vampire bats, and owls are commonly active during the night. Multi-hued toucans and parrots enjoy the daytime skies. Similar animals inhabit forests in Paraguay, the Pantanal, and the rainy eastern slopes of the Andes.

The Amazon River contains eels, caimans, stingrays, river dolphins, and millions of fish, especially piranhas (only some of which devour flesh). Mangroves hug miles of coastline in Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Cuba, and Mexico. A colorful array of wildlife depends on the Belize Barrier Reef and on dozens of more isolated Caribbean reefs and cays.

High elevations also teem with life. Endangered monarch butterflies alight in the forests of the Mexican Plateau after making long-distance migrations from the northern United States. In central Costa Rica, the Andes of Ecuador and Colombia, and other well-watered highlands, slopes are lined with lichen and mosses.
More sheltered areas are sometimes capped with ponds and perpetually humid cloud forests (cloudlike mists and fog) that surround paper-bark trees, orchids, and sound-absorbing undergrowth.

Deserts at higher elevations such as the Sonoran (in Mexico) reveal a variety of life, including saguaro cacti, nesting birds, coyotes, and owls. The boojum tree, which looks like an upside-down carrot, is found only in parts of northwestern Mexico. Gnarled, stunted trees and drought-resistant grasses typify the backlands of northeastern Brazil, Patagonia, and the Gran Chaco, where rheas, armadillos, iguanas, and rattlesnakes thrive. Thorn trees in northeastern Brazil create formidable barriers in river valleys. Peru’s drier slopes are spotted with tufts of ichu grass and thorny bushes. Most llamas, guanacos, and alpacas in the Andes are semi-domesticated, while their cousins, vicuñas, are a protected species. Enormous condors can be found on the cliffs.

Widespread poverty and population growth place wildlife at risk, even within national parks, as many poachers are willing to risk prison and fines in order to feed and clothe their families. In Brazil efforts to open the Amazon for development have led to controversy, as have Amazon-settlement initiatives in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Rushes of gold miners and coca farmers to tropical lands have accelerated deforestation.

People and Culture

About one third of Latin Americans live in Brazil, another one third live in the Spanish-speaking parts of South America, and nearly one fifth live in Mexico. The remainder reside in Central America and the West Indies. The vast majority of Latin Americans and their largest cities are within 200 miles (320 kilometers) of a coast because ports have historically traded with Europe and the United States. However, many cities enjoy cooler highland sites, including Cali, Colombia; Quito, Ecuador; and La Paz and Sucre, Bolivia.

Latin America’s cities have exploded in size since the 1940s, swallowing up suburbs and rural immigrants in the process. In 1950 about one fourth of the people lived in places with more than 20,000 people, but today more than three fourths do. Among the chief cities are Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; Santiago, Chile; and Caracas, Venezuela. Mexico City and São Paulo, Brazil, have grown to become two of the world’s largest metropolitan areas.

Because of industrial smokestacks and increased auto traffic, many cities suffer from pollution. The bowl-shaped basins around Mexico City and Santiago help to keep polluted air in place. Of course, many cities have blocks of glittering skyscrapers or tree-lined and litter-free boulevards, and some have followed the ecologically sound principles pioneered in Curitiba, Brazil. Many new arrivals to cities live in slums or in newly formed shantytowns called favelas in Brazil and “miserable neighborhoods” in Argentina. These shantytowns also are called “invasions” because they can appear suddenly, sometimes overnight. The inhabitants endure the lack of electricity, water, and sewage systems.

Ethnic Groups

Racial categories overlap and contradict one another. But even so, most Latin Americans describe their ancestry as either indigenous (Amerindian), European (white), African (black), mestizo (mixed European and Amerindian, sometimes called Ladino in Central America), or mulatto (mixed African and European).

Far more Amerindians live in Latin America than in the United States. Indigenous and mestizo groups are more concentrated in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Guatemala. Many blacks and mulattos live in northeastern Brazil, the West Indies, and the tropical coasts. Southern South America (Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile) has a high percentage of people of European origin, and many Brazilians are of Portuguese descent. People of South Asian heritage are in Guyana, Trinidad, and Suriname. Hundreds of thousands have ancestors from Japan (mainly in Brazil and Peru) and China (Peru, Mexico, and Cuba).

Indigenous peoples (Amerindians) and blacks tend to be disproportionately poor whereas whites generally have higher levels of income and education. Though there are exceptions to the rule, mestizos and mulattos fall somewhere in between.

Major changes have occurred, however. Indigenous groups in Ecuador now regularly mobilize for social justice. A Nobel peace prizewinner of Maya heritage, Rigoberta Menchú, has struggled against abuses in Guatemala. Indigenous presidents such as Alejandro Toledo (in Peru, 2001–06) and Evo Morales (in Bolivia, from 2006) have been elected, and growing numbers of Afro-Brazilians are succeeding in business and politics. Yet discrimination still complicates lives.

Languages

Most of the people of Latin America speak Spanish (the official language in most nations) or Portuguese (official in Brazil), and a smaller number speak English, French, or Dutch. In addition, Amerindians speak hundreds of different languages, including at least 300 in Amazonia and 200 in different parts of Mexico. Indigenous languages with official status (in addition to Spanish or Portuguese) include Quechua and Aymara in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia; Guaraní in Paraguay; Nahuatl in Mexico; and Mayan languages in southern Mexico and Central America. Half of Guatemala’s 10 million people speak about 20 Mayan languages. In Haiti, French is spoken by an educated minority while most of the people speak Haitian Creole, or Kweyol, which has many African influences. Many native languages have only a handful of speakers left and are now dying out.

Religions

Typically between 70 and 95 percent of Latin Americans describe themselves as Christian, and among these about nine of 10 adhere to Roman Catholicism, which is the official religion in many countries. Protestant minorities have been growing rapidly since the 1980s, especially in Evangelical churches. Animism and other traditional religions prevail in some areas.

Syncretic (blended) religions such as Voodoo in Haiti, Santería in Cuba, Obeah in Jamaica, and Umbanda and Candomblé in Brazil combine aspects of West African Yoruba religion and Catholicism. Syncretism also occurs among Aymara or Quechua speakers in the Andes, where miners and farmers make offerings to mountain spirits as well as to the Virgin Mary and other Catholic saints.

Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad have had large minorities of Hindus and Muslims. Uruguay, Argentina, Aruba, and Panama have small but significant Jewish populations. Limited numbers of Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and Buddhists live in other countries.

Culture

Latin America’s cultures are as diverse as any in the world, but some contexts of Latin American history, religion, economics, and politics distinguish it as a region. For example, art, literature, and popular culture reveal a mix of European, Amerindian, African, and Asian inputs. In addition, Latin America has long exchanged cultural influences with the United States, resulting in a “love-hate” relationship that has inspired great writers and thinkers. For example, José Enrique Rodó argued in Ariel (1900) that Latin America is spiritually and morally superior to the more powerful United States.

Sports

Latin Americans often come together around sports events. Soccer (association football) thrives in every country. Its annual World Cup is a televised sensation in most living rooms and bars, and players such as Brazil’s Pelé and Ronaldo have become world famous. Baseball is popular in Mexico, Venezuela, and countries around the Caribbean. Among other popular sports are swimming, boxing, basketball, and volleyball. Some sports, including tennis, golf, and gymnastics, are usually too costly for the poor. Even bowling may be reserved to exclusive social clubs. Despite animal-rights concerns, cock fights, bull fights, and rodeos (charreadas) bring in huge crowds, especially in Mexico.

Music and dance

Latin America moves and shakes to many beats. African and Afro-Caribbean flavors are felt in rumba, samba (the Carnaval music of Rio de Janeiro), salsa and cumbia (ever popular in discotheques), reggae from Jamaica, the son (“sound”) and bolero from Cuba, and Latin punk, fusion, rock, and pop music. Even the sultry Argentine tango (a traditional music and dance) owes its 19th-century origins to Africans before European immigrants made it famous. The European waltz was the forerunner of many popular dances. Many kinds of folk music are enjoyed, including Peruvian huayños and marineras, Bolivian cuecas and yaravís, Ecuadorian pasillos, and Mexican mariachi tunes. Traditional Andean music blends haunting flutes and sonorous panpipes. Since the mid-1900s the smooth sounds of bossa nova and tropicália have reminded listeners of Brazil’s tropical charm. Larger countries have distinct regional music, as is the case with Mexico’s música norteña (“northern music”) and rancheras with polkalike beats, the African-inflected marimba and the jarocho (including the famous song “La Bamba”) from the south, and the violin and guitar-laden huapango from the central states.

Literature

Orally transmitted histories, myths, and hero stories formed the basis of Amerindian literatures for thousands of years. The Maya and Aztecs developed writing systems as hieroglyphics, which they placed in codices (books), in art, and on buildings. Although Spanish missionaries and conquistadors tossed Maya tomes onto bonfires, the Popul Vuh (a major religious book) and a few other texts survived.

Christopher Columbus and other conquerors wrote imaginatively about “cities of gold,” mermaids, and giants. Among the talented colonial authors were Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Garcilaso de la Vega, Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, and Bartolomé de las Casas. Latin America’s first novel was José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi’s The Itching Parrot (1816). The region’s poetry eventually rose upon the shoulders of Rubén Darío, José Julian Martí, and Pablo Neruda.

Social inequities sparked Indianista (pro-Indian) novels such as Clorinda Matto de Turner’s Birds Without a Nest (1889) and Jorge Icaza’s Huasipungo: The Villagers (1934). Gabriela Mistral won Latin America’s first Nobel Prize for literature in 1945, and a later prizewinner, Miguel Ángel Asturias, highlighted violence in Guatemala. Social criticism sharpened with Peru’s José Carlos Mariátegui, Mexico’s Octavio Paz, and Uruguay’s Eduardo Galeano. Novels in the style of magical realism exploded in popularity with Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel García Márquez, and Carlos Fuentes. Among other best-selling authors are Peru’s Mario Vargas Llosa, Mexico’s Laura Esquivel, and Chile’s Isabel Allende. Latin America has dozens of major newspapers (especially in its capital cities), prestigious magazines (such as Brazil’s Veja and Peru’s Caretas), and respected Internet publishers.

Theater, television, and film

Latin America has known spectacles since ancient times, mainly in the form of religious and royal pageants. Solstice and harvest festivals are still observed at Teotihuacán (near Mexico City); Cuzco, Peru; and innumerable lesser sites. Catholic passion plays and processions are attended in thousands of towns, especially during Easter’s Holy Week and at local festivals. Major cities have commercial (stage) theaters as well as opera companies, although the cost of attendance can be high.

Television and film are closely linked, and many stars work in both media. The most popular TV programs are nighttime telenovelas (soap operas), sports events, news, imported action films and dramas, and music/dance and variety shows. Talk show hosts such as Peru’s Laura Bozzo and the Cuban-born Cristina Saralegui garnered controversy and popularity. The endearing Colombian telenovela Yo Soy Betty la Fea gave rise to the English-language Ugly Betty in 2006, co-produced by Mexican-born actress Salma Hayek.

Hollywood films occupy many cinemas and movie-rental shelves, but Latin Americans have also produced stars and acclaimed movies. In the golden age of cinema, Mexican actor Cantinflas (Mario Moreno) began to make hilarious but socially relevant films that are still regularly rebroadcast. From the 1960s social ills were revealed in “realist cinema” by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea in Cuba, Fernando Birri and Fernando Solanas in Argentina, and, above all, in Brazil’s New Cinema beginning with Glauber Rocha, who directed Black God, White Devil (1964) and other films. In dramas such as Xica da Silva (1976), Carlos Diegues highlights Brazil’s African heritage, and Barren Lives (1963) by Nelson Pereira dos Santos depicts the drought-stricken lands and poverty of northeastern Brazil. The Peruvian director Claudia Llosa’s Madeinusa (2006) masterfully mixes comedy, religiosity, and ghastly abuses in a fictitious Andean town.

The murderous “dirty wars” are examined in Peru’s The Lion’s Den (1988) and You Only Live Once (1992); Argentina’s The Official Story (1985) and Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985); and Machuca (2004), about two boys caught in Chile’s spiral of violence in 1973. Urban poverty underlies the gritty Jamaican film The Harder They Come (1972), starring the singer Jimmy Cliff, and Brazil’s violent and disturbing City of God (2002).

Among the acclaimed English-language films made in, or about, Latin America are John Boorman’s The Emerald Forest (1985) and Roland Joffé’s The Mission (1986), the latter starring Robert de Niro and Jeremy Irons as Jesuits who aid Guaraní Indians against slave hunters. Films critical of foreign meddling include Burn! (1969), in which Marlon Brando is a double-dealing agent provocateur; David Bradbury’s Nicaragua: They Shall Not Pass (1984); Oliver Stone’s Salvador (1986); and the Oscar-winning documentary The Panama Deception (1992). Among the Latin American actors to bask in Hollywood stardom in the 2000s are Gael García Bernal, Salma Hayek, and Andy Garcia.

Visual arts

Artwork in jade, wood, paintings, textiles, feathers, and pottery have ancient pedigrees. Colonial sculptures and paintings focused on religious themes. Art now shows mixed influences, as with the murals of Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros in Mexico City and the skull-shaped candies created for Mexico’s Day of the Dead. Many artists focus on social justice and human rights, as in the paintings of Ecuador’s Oswaldo Guayasamín, which depict gaunt, anguished victims of brutality and poverty. African themes are seen in Haitian wood carvings, and Andean artists thrive on indigenous imagery. Among Latin America’s other globally admired artists are Frida Kahlo, Rufino Tamayo, Miguel Covarrubias, Francisco Zúñiga, and Fernando Botero.

Education and Social Welfare

Although Latin America’s elite private schools have plentiful resources, public schools tend to be underfunded. Overall, the region has attained high enrollment rates for primary school. However, the percentage of students who complete primary and secondary education tends to be significantly lower among poorer families. Many groups, influenced by the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, have promoted adult courses for critical thinking and empowerment. Hundreds of thousands of students enroll in technical institutes and in universities. The largest is the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City.

Life expectancies in some Latin American countries, including Cuba, Costa Rica, Panama, and some Caribbean islands, are about on a par with average lifespans in the United States. However, other countries lag behind. In most countries private clinics serve the wealthy while the poor fill state hospitals. Cuba, however, has reduced illnesses among infants and the poor because it provides more doctors per person than many other countries. Major causes of death in the region include circulatory and respiratory diseases, diabetes, cancers, accidents, murders, and other violence. Typhoid, yellow fever, and other maladies are linked to poor hygiene and unsafe water supplies.

Many countries have underfunded state-run welfare and social security systems. Although insurance is available to some, families and networks of friends are most people’s only real guarantees. Many poor and middle class families pool their economic resources out of necessity, and as a result three or four generations may live under the same roof.

Economy

Latin America is regarded as a developing region with earnings far below those of the developed countries. Moreover, great disparities of wealth mar societies from within. The rich are distanced from the poor though they live side by side.

Most of Latin America’s economies rely on capitalism but with varying types of government influence and, sometimes, intervention in areas of investment, industry, land ownership, and trade. Services are a large and growing economic sector, but manufacturing remains important. In general, about one fourth of workers are employed in agriculture, although the proportion is higher in Haiti, Nicaragua, and other poorer countries.

Most Latin American countries had one or two main exports (typically minerals or foods) until the 1950s, which made them vulnerable to global market swings. Countries then diversified their economies with other exports, and the largest (Brazil and Mexico) became leading manufacturers. Many now have faith in neo-liberal free-trade pacts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, signed by Mexico, Canada, and the United States) and MERCOSUR (Common Market of the South, which was first signed by Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay). However, others say that free trade is hypocritical, as Latin America remains dependent on foreign loans and exports, while transnational corporations continue to take a large share of profits out of the region.

Agriculture, Fishing, and Forestry

Many of Latin America’s staple foods have been grown there since ancient times, including corn (maize), beans, and squash in Mexico and Central America; quinoa (a high-protein grain), corn, and potatoes in the Andes; and cassava (manioc) and citrus fruits in lowland rainforests. Rice, plantains, and bananas are also region-wide staples.

Brazil is the world’s top exporter of coffee and orange juice (mainly to the U.S. market). Sugarcane and bananas are grown throughout the West Indies, but the chief exporters are Cuba (for sugar) and Ecuador and Central America (for bananas). Hundreds of millions of cattle, pigs, and sheep are sent to local and foreign markets by Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Uruguay. Brazil has about twice as many cattle as the United States.

In many tropical zones deforestation has spread because of beef cattle, soybeans, logging, illicit coca farming, and mining operations. Mahogany and other woods are taken from rainforests. Pines in Mexico and Chile have been overexploited for lumber and wood chips.

The cold Peru Current is one of the world’s best fishing zones, making Peru a leading exporter of fishmeal and other marine products. Most countries have limited ocean fishing fleets although freshwater catches and “fish farming” are significant. Since the 1990s many coastal shrimp farms have been established in Mexico, Ecuador, and elsewhere.

Industry

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Enormous supplies of petroleum (oil) and natural gas lie beneath the land and coastal waters of Mexico and Venezuela, which are important oil exporters. Lesser but still valuable amounts of oil are in Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, Peru, Colombia, and Brazil. Bolivia, Argentina, Trinidad and Tobago, and Colombia also have large supplies of natural gas. Metal exports include gold, silver, and iron ore from Mexico, Peru, French Guiana, and Brazil; copper from Chile and Peru; zinc from Bolivia; and bauxite (the ore of aluminum) or alumina from Jamaica, Suriname, Guyana, and Brazil.

Most factories are concentrated in major metropolitan areas such as São Paulo (in Brazil) and Mexico City, although there are many maquiladoras (export-oriented assembly plants) near the Mexico–U.S. border. Other manufacturing zones include Monterrey, Mexico; Caracas, Venezuela; and Buenos Aires, Argentina. These areas produce metal goods, automobiles, machinery, electronics, and other goods. Nearly all medium-sized cities have factories for food products, cement, paper products, and chemicals. Some countries and dependencies have carved niches in global markets. Puerto Rico provides chemical and pharmaceutical products, Peru exports wool sweaters, and Haiti “re-exports” clothing (the labor of which was originally outsourced to Haitians, who often must work under sweatshop conditions) to the United States.

Services

The service sector of the economy includes finance, tourism, trade, health care, education, government, and other activities. Despite the increasing use of computers and automated services, large numbers of clerks still work in banks, private offices, and government agencies. Because wages are so low, many middle-class households have live-in maids who are often young (10 to 18 years), female, and from poor indigenous families.

Jobs in hotels, restaurants, and tour-guide companies make tourism a major employer for resort areas. Unfortunately, tourism is a double-edged sword in terms of economic impact and environmental and social risks. Many Caribbean islands, for example, have shortages of clean water and fuels though their international hotels are oversupplied.

Many service workers in Latin America are part of the “informal economy,” which is also called the underground, shadow, or black market economy. Some are sidewalk vendors (of food, drinks, candies, etc.), day laborers for farms and construction sites, maids, gardeners, and even car mechanics. Others engage in prostitution, drug smuggling, or trafficking stolen artifacts from ancient tombs and archaeological sites.

Transportation and Communication

The inter-oceanic Panama Canal is a vital world transportation link, as is the railway that parallels the canal. Latin America’s rivers generally lack locks and dams to move ships over rapids. Most countries have international and domestic airports. There are hundreds of fishing ports and dozens of cargo ports, the largest of which are oil or deep-sea container shipping ports at places such as Veracruz, Mexico, and Santos, Brazil (near São Paulo).

Railroads move some passenger traffic and many bulk products. Buses serve long-distance and local routes, and larger cities have commuter rail systems and subways. Road networks are inadequate because of the high costs of building across mountains, rivers, and other barriers. One of the higher quality routes is the paved Pan American Highway, which runs from Mexico through Central America, breaks at the Panama–Colombia border (through which there is no road), and continues to southern Chile and Argentina.

TV and radio stations broadcast throughout Latin America. Telephone landlines are problematic owing to their high costs of construction and maintenance, but since the 1990s the use of cell and satellite phones has spread widely. The Internet is also gaining users among those who can afford personal computers or, more commonly, visits to Internet cafés.

International immigration and transnationalism have spurred communications of all kinds. Hundreds of thousands of people move legally between Latin American countries every year, and some go to the United States. Many who migrate without legal papers are obliged to take low-paying jobs and are subjected to discrimination and abuse.

History

Early Civilizations

The ancestors of Amerindians arrived at least 12,000 years ago and perhaps far earlier than that. Over the centuries in places as far apart as Mexico, western Ecuador, Bolivia, and the Amazon, ancient farmers used raised fields (earthen platforms surrounded by lake water or irrigation canals) to keep crops watered in the dry season and shielded from frosts. Potatoes were first cultivated not in Ireland but in the Andes of Peru and Bolivia. In diverse areas ancient farmers grew hot peppers, corn (maize), tomatoes, and squash. In the Andes llamas and alpacas were raised as pack animals and as sources of meat and wool.

Large cities, long-distance trade networks, and sophisticated political unions arose, as did wonders of art, architecture, and astronomical knowledge. However, ancient Latin America also suffered wars and social ills including slavery, though not on the scale of the chattel slavery that Europeans would bring. Among the ancient civilizations were Chavín de Huántar, Paracas, Nazca, Wari, and Moche (in Peru); Tiwanaku (Bolivia and Peru); and the Zapotec and Olmec (Mexico). About 2,000 years ago Teotihuacán (near present Mexico City) was one of the largest cities in the world.

By about ad 800 the Maya and Olmec flourished in Mexico and Central America. Although less is known about the ancient Amazon, large communities thrived there. By the late 1400s Aztecs ruled much of central Mexico; Tupi speakers covered much of Brazil; Caribs and Arawaks inhabited the Caribbean; and the Inca Empire controlled thousands of miles of South America.

Conquest and Colonialism

The European conquest of Latin America began in 1492 with the voyages of Christopher Columbus. He and other Europeans depopulated large parts of the Caribbean as they enslaved native peoples and searched for gold. When little was found they desperately hunted for the mythical Seven Golden Cities of Cíbola in North America and the fabled kingdom of El Dorado (“the Golden One”) in South America.

Two years after landing a small force in Mexico in 1519, Hernán Cortés conquered the mighty Aztec Empire. This was possible in large part because of thousands of indigenous allies and superior Spanish weapons: steel armor, swords, ferocious trained dogs, war horses, and loud (if somewhat inaccurate) firearms. But above all, germs were the deadliest factor. Europeans unwittingly brought smallpox, influenza, bubonic plague, and other maladies that slew millions, including allies. With governments, armies, and economies wrecked by disease, the Indians struggled to maintain organized defenses. Within a century populations in many areas had dropped by 90 percent.

In the 1530s Francisco Pizarro applied lessons learned from Cortés to his own conquest of the Inca Empire of South America. Among the epoch’s other notorious conquistadors were Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Francisco Coronado in northern Mexico, Vasco Núñez de Balboa (who crossed Panama to “discover” the Pacific Ocean), Pedro de Alvarado in Guatemala, Francisco de Montejo in the Yucatán, Francisco de Orellana and Lope de Aguirre in the Amazon, and Pedro de Valdivia in Chile. Pedro Álvares Cabral claimed Brazil for Portugal in 1500. The hunter-gatherers of the Pampas and rainforests were more successful at resisting invasion (until the 1800s) because of their dispersed settlements, because of their hit-and-run tactics, and, ironically, because they lacked strong centralized governments.

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For all its tragedy and turmoil, the conquest of the Americas was also the meeting of two hemispheres. In this so-called Columbian Exchange, Europe brought not only diseases and people but also cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, wheat, bananas, olives, sugar, and coffee. Meanwhile the Americas changed the world by giving it potatoes, tomatoes, squash, corn (maize), hot peppers, and cacao (the source of chocolate)—and new plantations exported huge amounts of sugar back to Europe. Of course, many of these exchanges brought more trouble, including soil erosion from overgrazing sheep in the Americas and diabetes and tooth decay from growing sugar consumption in Europe.

The Americas were heavily influenced by wars and policies decided in Europe. The islands of the West Indies changed hands several times. Trade restrictions invited smugglers while pirates from Great Britain, France, and elsewhere raided islands, outposts, and juicy targets along the Brazilian coast and the Latin American mainland.

Colonial society was divided along racial lines, with a European minority (from 2 to 20 percent) ruling over a large population of mestizos, mulattos, Amerindians, and African slaves. The Europeans were further divided between Creoles (criollos) born in the Americas and peninsulares, who were born on the Iberian Peninsula but held the highest royal posts. From the 1500s to the 1800s between 10 and 15 million African slaves were taken to Latin America (mostly to Brazil and the Caribbean)—more than 20 times the number sold to the English colonies (which became the United States). Owners sometimes preferred to import new slaves rather than invest in food and water for times of drought and famine. Some slaves escaped to form communities in the backlands.

Independence and Instability

The French Revolution (1789) and subsequent Napoleonic wars deeply influenced rebel sentiments in the region. In a unique historic turn a Haitian slave revolt that began in 1791 grew into a revolution that freed Haiti from France in 1804. Elsewhere the strongest push toward self-rule occurred after Napoleon’s armies invaded Portugal (1807) and Spain (1808), and the Portuguese royal family fled to Brazil.

In South America the rebel general Simón Bolívar became known as the father of South American independence. Among his allies were José de San Martín (in Argentina), José Antonio Páez (in Venezuela), and Bernardo O’Higgins (in Chile). Mexico’s struggle was begun by two priests (Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla and José María Morelos, who were executed) and was completed by onetime loyalist Agustín de Iturbide, who made himself Mexico’s emperor. Unlike its neighbors, Brazil achieved independence with little bloodshed. In 1822, after the Portuguese king returned home, his son Pedro declared independence from Portugal.

Despite the grand intentions proclaimed in Latin America’s new constitutions, leaders were generally more interested in economic boons and personal power than in democracy. But dictators and civilian presidents alike favored growth through exports such as Jamaican and Haitian sugar, Andean minerals, and beef cattle from Argentina and Uruguay.

Three major wars altered boundaries in the 1800s. The U.S. creed of Manifest Destiny and Texans’ anger over Mexico’s plan to end slavery led to the Mexican War (1846–48), after which Mexico lost half its territory. In the disastrous War of the Triple Alliance (1864/65–70), Paraguay lost 15 to 20 percent of its people defending against Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. A dispute over nitrate exports ignited the War of the Pacific (1879–83), in which Chile defeated Peru and Bolivia.

Although the trans-Atlantic slave trade diminished in the 1800s, slavery was not outlawed until 1848 on French islands and not until 1873 in Puerto Rico, 1886 in Cuba, and 1888 in Brazil. Plantation owners and large companies were unwilling to pay high wages to freed slaves and other workers, so they trapped some in debt peonage and imported indentured laborers (as quasi-slaves) from South Asia, China, and Indonesia.

Modernity and Immigration

After the 1880s exports to Europe and the United States boomed, especially beef and wheat from Argentina, copper from Chile, coffee from Brazil, sugar and tobacco from Cuba, and henequen (for rope) and minerals from Mexico. Efforts to modernize often blended with desires to “whiten” Latin American populations. From 1880 to 1920, millions of Italian, German, and other European immigrants were welcomed.

British investors helped build costly railroads in return for lucrative trade deals, and they took their profits back to Europe. But the United States soon became dominant. In the Spanish-American War of 1898, U.S. forces took Cuba and Puerto Rico. U.S. warships enabled Panama’s independence from Colombia in 1903. Panama then allowed the United States to build and control the Panama Canal. In 1904 the United States proclaimed its right to interfere in Latin America in the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which it invoked in dozens of plots and military actions, including lengthy occupations of Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Cuba.

From the Great Depression of the 1930s onward, many countries suffered coups. Among the notorious dictators were Rafael Trujillo Molina in the Dominican Republic (1930–61), Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay (1954-89), François Duvalier (1957–71) and his son Jean-Claude (1971–86) in Haiti, and the Somoza family (1937–79) in Nicaragua.

Cold War Geopolitics

Most of the region’s dictators were U.S. allies in the Cold War and received weapons, aid from spies, and money to help certain politicians win elections. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sponsored a 1954 coup in Guatemala, precipitating a civil war that lasted more than 40 years and cost tens of thousands of lives. The CIA also aided General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte’s coup (1973) against the first democratically elected socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende Gossens. The United States led about two dozen direct military actions in Latin America from 1960 to 2000 (including invasions of Grenada and Panama). It also supported right-wing governments in “dirty wars,” which resulted in thousands of disappearances—that is, secret arrests usually leading to torture and death.

After defeating the right-wing Somoza family, leftist Sandinistas led Nicaragua from 1979 until the mid-1990s despite clashes with U.S.-supplied rebels called Contras. The Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista was ousted in 1959 by Fidel Castro. Fearing Castro’s overtures toward the Soviet Union, the United States supported the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, and it came to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. The United States then inflicted severe economic sanctions on Cuba, which continued into the 2000s.

Despite oil crises in 1973–74 and 1979, many governments took on high-interest loans to finance developments in the 1970s. In the 1980s civilian democracies took hold again in Peru, Uruguay, and Brazil. However, that period was known as the “lost decade” because of economic troubles. Protests and riots broke out when governments imposed austerity measures (including cuts in social spending) in order to get loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

Latin America after the Cold War

In the 1990s, after the Cold War ended, neo-liberal changes swept the region. Governments sought freer trade and privatized (sold off) state-owned companies. But in the eyes of many, neo-liberalism meant corruption and upheaval. Latin Americans also debated the U.S.-led wars in the Middle East and its war on drugs in the Americas. But some changes gave people hope for the future, such as when the United States gave up the Panama Canal on December 31, 1999.

Latin America’s presidents continued to desire centralized power, but labor unions, indigenous groups, and other democratic forces also arose. Although Latin Americans remain plagued by harsh political and economic structures, social inequality, and other ills, they add their voices and dreams to the 21st century with a mixture of pride, caution, and hope.

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